


idée fixe

by inkandparchment



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Depression, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24557848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandparchment/pseuds/inkandparchment
Summary: i·dée fixe [n.]/ēˌdā ˈfēks/an idea or thought that continually dominates a person's mind; an obsession.marinette couldn't possibly be depressed, they say. obsession? she's always been *a little* obsessed with adrien, sure, but she's still the happiest person we know! nevertheless, luka senses the melody that plagues marinette's heart when the mask is down, discordant and screeching and guilty and hollow and empty, so empty for a girl who always seems to have too much of herself to give, and he plays that melody, the one that strikes her when she has no more energy left to smile or even cry. and when that empty, stone cold, loneliness, and numbness kicks in, he is the one with the ability to help her heal.warning: marinette suffers from depression in this fic, and there is mention of self harm, but not suicide.
Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Kudos: 33





	idée fixe

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [about the moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21081752) by [asolidpileoftrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asolidpileoftrash/pseuds/asolidpileoftrash). 
  * Inspired by [Watching for Butterflies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21026873) by [volti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/volti/pseuds/volti). 



> i usually put my disclaimer at the beginning of my works, but for this one, i wanted to write a real introduction. mental health issues seemed to really swallow me up this past year, and are becoming more and more common in young people. i haven't been clinically or formally diagnosed with depression or anxiety, but for the past two years, i have struggled with feeling a lot of this "nothingness" even when my head tells me that i have nothing to be sad about and should just be happy. i know people have it a lot worse than me, and even have close friends who have come very close to committing suicide, but something about marinette's breakdown at the end of the season 3 episode 25 finale (part 1) really resonated with how i feel, and while i can only wish i had a luka in my life to help me deal with it, my own guitar music has often helped me get out of my own head, a therapeutic activity when everything simultaneously seems so chaotic and dull - lacking in vibrancy and life, the contrast itself causing me to feel terribly overwhelmed and inadequate. so even if you disagree with the way i portrayed marinette and her experience with depression in this fic, i ask that you simply please not make any criticisms. although it was a rather easy fic to write (after all, they say that it is easiest to write what you know), i've been long contemplating whether i wanted to publish this along with the other works i've been posting recently (most of which were written and finished before i began this account) as it is difficult to share about the feelings (or the lack of them) that seem to appear when i am feeling most vulnerable.

i·dée fixe [n.]

/ēˌdā ˈfēks/

an idea or thought that continually dominates a person's mind; an obsession,

marinette's love for adrien was intoxicating. all-consuming. she let it take over her life, like everything else she did. 

they say that people can be depressed without feeling sad. that people's symptoms of depression can include feelings of restlessness, overwhelming guilt, worthlessness, numbness, and addiction and obsession, just to name a few. but that couldn't possibly be right - marinette's  _ always  _ been so goddamn cheerful! no one with her optimism could possibly be depressed! you just don't know her because she's never sad! her smile extends from across a room! and after all, only people who look and act sad can be depressed…

they didn't know that marinette was ladybug. 

marinette thought it was an addiction. as she leapt from building to building, her adrenaline built up, and she felt like her restlessness was somewhat under control. it made her feel dizzy, being so far up in the air, knowing that any ordinary person could surely die or at least be frightened out of their mind by the feats she performed, bright eyes shining with something. she breathed, using her yo-yo to swing across paris. she felt kind of alive.

but she couldn't always just swing around with abandon like on the quiet nights she patrolled by herself. everywhere she looked, she was filled with guilt. she was really fucking useless. it was nauseating to always remember that she was the one responsible for the wellbeing of each and every single person in paris. as she continued fighting hawkmoth, she was quickly disillusioned. while she still held a soft spot in her heart for civilians and victims of akumatizations, she came to the conclusion that not all people were born good. she held on to her feelings of guilt and worthlessness, obsessing and internalizing her insecurities. why was  _ she  _ a hero of paris? she slowly forgot how to see the beauty in her friends' laughter, the wonder in a rose sprouting from cracks in the concrete. all that was left was something hollow inside, as she settled into this cloud of  _ nothingness _ .

she filled her hollowness with him, with her responsibilities. every waking and dreaming minute was spent thinking about him - where was he at every moment of the day? 

they say that obsessions are recurrent thoughts or urges that cause distress, often rooted in guilt and fear.

you could say she feared losing control, or maybe, she just feared forgetting. so she filled out a detailed schedule for where he could be, essentially stalking the boy. (it was okay though because she loved him, she loved him, she loved him)

she wallpapered the rooms of her wall with his smiling face, a smile as bright as the beams from her lamp. she wished her smile was as real as his. 

though he never left her mind, she made sure that many other things occupied her at all times. she drowned and suffocated herself in work, undertaking projects that left her red-eyed and sleepless the next day at school. she'd forgotten how to feel, so while sewing, she'd prick her finger on a needle sometimes. just to remind her that if she couldn't feel happy, then at least she could feel pain, as a single drop of blood fell on the carpet. (it didn't work, it didn't work, why didn't it work???)

her despair, it wasn't just skin deep. all that she was left with was the bone-chilling numbness and emptiness, a chronic sense of guilt and helplessness, and an idée fixe - an addiction - an obsession, with the rush she got from falling from the air and with the person who was sunshine personified, everything she wanted to be. adrien, adrien, adrien

but then blue eyes met blue eyes.

it wasn't like turning a switch. nothing in life is that easy, nothing in life is free. 

she first saw him while he was meditating and for a moment the cold subsided, giving way to white hot rage, because why would a person seek to find silence, find emptiness in their head?! she burned with both envy and shame at her own jealousy, but she couldn't help it. nothing could stop her from thinking about how lucky he was for silence and emptiness to be a choice, not a curse of existence. 

that was when she first wondered why she'd never been akumatized. she never really felt happy anymore, and hawkmoth fed off of everyone's negative emotions. why not hers? she theorized about whether it could be due to her lack of feeling, or maybe it was just the fact that the emptiness inside of her felt more like a dull ache than a loud and strong emotional outburst. 

the flash of white hot rage had gone as quickly as it come, and while it washed her in more guilt, in that second, she'd forgotten her idée fixe. she'd forgotten adrien, adrien, adrien, in favor of just one second of luka. 

then, he got out his guitar. 

listening to him scared marinette. something about it made her feel… whole again. full. like whatever she'd been missing had finally added up. she worried if it was okay to forget, if it was selfish of her. it had been so long since the last time that anything had captured her mind or heart as strongly as adrien, adrien, adrien… but the throbbing of her head died down when she was with him, and she couldn't bring herself to care.

adrien was marinette's idée fixe. he was how she coped. she smothered him over the scorched tatters of her that remained and that made her inexplicably feel like weeping. she couldn't be ladybug if her cheerful facade could not counteract the villainy of hawkmoth. she couldn't be marinette without a sweet smile and macarons for her classmates. she despised her masks - both of them.

however, luka played the song she felt inside, missing notes and all, and gave her a hug. he wasn't adrien, the boy who had for so long been her sun, her idée fixe, but she basked in the soft light that his music provided. it was warm, but not scalding, just like a caress or a hug from a close friend. it was coming home, and finding out about the scars and bruises she'd sustained along the way. it was healing, and forgetting, and helping her to let go. it was acceptance of all who she was and all who she had become. it was hope for who she could be in the future, and a challenge and inspiration for her to make things right, make things better not for paris, but for marinette.

\---

they say that blue is the color of sadness and black the color of death. they say that golden represents the sun, bright, shining, and cheerful. however, her golden haired idée fixe did nothing but mask the sadness she felt inside. no, it was only blue hair, blue eyes, and black fingernails that enabled her to move on, enveloping her in long searched for peace and acceptance. to her, the colors were love and comfort and home. he wasn't on her mind all the time, but her love and gratitude for him ran deeper than anything she'd felt for the golden boy. luka helped her to stop repressing her emotions, generously, selflessly holding her while he gently told her to let it all out, and told her that she could tell him anything - or nothing - whatever she preferred. he saw through her masks, and she wondered why she had been so scared of letting them drop in the first place when all she saw in his eyes and heard in his song was love and admiration and relief that you're here with me and i know it's hard but every single little thing will eventually be okay because "marinette, you're so unbelievably brave" and "you're an extraordinary girl"

slowly, she began to see color again. she began to see the beauty in her friends' laughter, the wonder in a rose sprouting from cracks in the concrete. she began to feel.

it was a long road, this healing thing, but now she wasn't alone. her melody was entwined with luka's sweet and steadfast and wonderfully constant musical presence, both individual parts that spoke equally with each other in musical conversation, fitting themselves into each others' gaps of lonely, missing, and empty space that made for the most precious duet, the sound of marinette's initial song, a weary mechanical runaway train that chased the sun, having evolved into something so much more expressive now, now that she could finally feel.

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: all my gratitude to thomas astruc's miraculous ladybug for inspiring this fic - anything you recognize (characters, setting, dialogue, etc) belongs to him! although i wish i did, i unfortunately don't have any association whatsoever to the owners/creators/producers of miraculous ladybug. also, just want to clarify that i never intend to cause any harm or copyright infringement through the publishing of my work on this site. however, i ask that if you take inspiration from anything original in my fics, please let me know and tag me in your own, but please don't copy or plagiarize them here or on other sites without my explicit knowledge and permission.
> 
> this is also semi-inspired by asolidpileoftrash's "about the moon" fic where mari realizes that obsessive crushes are not the same thing as love, which is listed under parent works for this fic, as well as volti's "watching for butterflies" which dives deep into the earlier referenced ending scene of s3 ep25 where marinette finds comfort in luka.
> 
> also, while most of my information about marinette's depression stems from personal experience, i also went off of information i found on these websites:  
> https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/is-it-depression-if-i-dont-feel-sad-0429144  
> https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/ocd  
> https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/emptiness


End file.
